Q11

[andrewgong01]

I got this one wrong on review but correct on the acual exam and wanted to check my reasoning on how to choose between "B an "A"

Prephase: Look for the weakest one, author was not against preservation of language

C) "main roadblock" and "most effective" - degree. It's unlikley it is the lack of consensus between elders for the most effective way is the main roadblock, especially considering P4

D) Degree for saying "most efficiently". That said what it describes as "most efficient" is not what P4 said and P4 seemed like a bigger influencing idea the author brought up

E) Seemed like scope issues since we do not really learn much about colleges devoting more resources aside from P1 that talks about colleges but nothing about the amount of resources . Moreover, this is quite a strong claim but not an absolute one. However, it seemed like the issue was more concerned with radios as something to preserve language

What I had trouble with :
I chose B because I thought you did need the cooperation because P4 focused a great deal on what we SHOULD do to preserve the language because other methods (e.g. grammar lessons) will not work. However, changing the way the language is preserved does require people who currently can speak the language to cooperate and get on these radio shows etc. I know "B" is strong for saying "will fail" but they did include a lot of parties within the answer choice

A) I am not sure where we got support that it is "desirable as an end in itself". I guess from hindsight even though "most successfully" is strong the author did talk about that in P4 ?

[ohthatpatrick]

The first time I tried this problem, I was working through it with a tutoring student, and we definitely were a little unsettled by our choice of (A). It pulls its support from more than one area (which is pretty natural, given that this answer choice makes two completely different claims).

On a first pass, I thought
(B) "will fail"
(C) "main roadblock"
and
(E) "unlikely to be achieved unless"

all seemed dangerously strong.

I left "most effective / successful / efficient" out of this mix only because I remembered that the author HAD said something to the effect of, "In order for this to be effective, the programming has to be ______ ", so it seemed reasonable to think we could support what the author sees as the most successful path by just making sure it matches up with the _______ from that line in the passage.

On a first pass, I thought
(B) cooperation is needed
(D) tech and economic environment
and
(E) higher learning curricula (although now I see that we obliquely dealt with that in lines 13-15)

all seemed very out of scope.

I see why you were tempted by (B); it's definitely the 2nd best answer choice, I think. But just because the author mentioned native speakers, other community members, society as a whole ... doesn't mean that the author ever stressed that "cooperation was essential or else failure was inevitable".

In particular, I don't know why the author thinks that "society as a whole" would need to cooperate to stave off failure. It seems like the passage was just saying, "As people put more energy nowadays into preserving languages, let's make sure they're focused on making the RIGHT KIND of programming."

I don't think we can assume that making the right kind of programming hinges on cooperation with society as a whole.

Meanwhile (A)'s second half is supported by 39-43 and 24-26
"radio programming that resonates with the living oral traditions of indigenous communities" and that "promotes the community's language and keeps community members apprised of important issues" supports the idea of "integrated into the daily life of native communities".

It ain't great support, but the bigger real world context of radio programming that has speakers play word games / newspapers that provide lessons / using the native language to keep community members apprised of important issues .... together they sound like they would permeate "daily life".

The idea that language preservation is a desirable end just needs the support of our author saying "it sucks that we're losing languages".

Here, we have "misguided" policies (line 6) that led to a decline in languages.
And we have the "deleterious" linguistic effects of the Internet (line 41) that force many indigenous speakers to devote considerable energy to mastering a standard language.

Overall, if we read the tone of the passage as
"Here's a problem [loss of native languages]. Here's a new attempt to solve it [radio programming]. It's a pretty effective solution, but let's make sure we use it the right way", then we have implicitly subscribed to the understanding that the author thinks that these native languages SHOULD be preserved.

[JoannaZ901]

Hi, thanks to your ingenious guys for all your brilliant answers!

But I do have a question. I chose (A) for Q9 of this article, which I thought was supported by 39-43 & 24-26 as well, just like @ohthatpatrick pointed out for Q11 (A). If (A) is the correct answer for Q11, how could we eliminate (A) for Q9?

Please help! Any idea would be appreciated!

[ThaoN810]

I've learned SO much from Patrick! Thank you for generously sharing your expertise here !

Can I ask where we find support for the "end in itself" part of (A)?